The present invention relates to a facsimile remote diagnostic system.
Facsimile is a well known technology which has been experiencing dramatic growth and usage in the business environment. Users recognize the inherent capability of facsimile as an effective means of transmitting many types of documents quickly and efficiently from a transmitting location to one or more remote receiving locations. Facsimile can quickly and efficiently transmit virtually any kind of document from one location to another in a very short transmission time, typically in seconds. This is a dramatic improvement over the sending of documents such as with the postal service and/or utilizing the various express courier services, which typically require overnight delivery of a document.
Users are demanding that the facsimile apparatus be readily available at virtually any time. Facsimile, however, can experience transmission and other types of problems, as with any other type of communications equipment. It becomes increasingly important, therefore, to provide a diagnostic capability for the facsimile apparatus for a particular user(s). The facsimile apparatus is typically located at an office, and it becomes very inefficient for a user to have to rely on a diagnostic service to come to the particular office to make necessary repairs to the facsimile apparatus.
In addition, the diagnostic service necessarily increases the cost of the overall equipment, as that service must be paid for in repairing the facsimile equipment.
In other technologies, some approaches have utilized remote diagnostic systems. The first remote diagnostic system was introduced in general by computer makers to provide checks for the current and prior status of the computer system by running diagnostic programs.
The next sophisticated remote diagnostic system introduced a capability using what can be characterized as expert knowledge. However, only one such system or unit is generally not enough to support field-installed equipment. In a facsimile environment, the dramatic expansion can at times demand concurrent diagnostics.
In view of the foregoing, it would be very desirable to provide a remote diagnostic system which can provide remote diagnostics for one or more remotely located facsimile apparatus.